Side-by-side distribution
DevOps
$195,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.3%
- Live roles
- 3,536
System Administrator
$120,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44%
- Live roles
- 459
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Software Engineer, Platform
Software Engineer, Platform
Lead Software Engineer, Payment Platform
Senior QA Engineer, Platform
Software Engineer, Platform Systems
Web Platform Lead Engineer
Highest-paying jobs
Systems Administrator 0-3 - Linux/KVM/Ansible/Slat/SSP/STE/STN/Scripting/AWS
Systems Administrator 2 - Linux/CI/CD/Ansible/Terraform/DevOps
Systems Administrator 2 - Linux
Systems Administrator 3 (On-Call) - Linux/Bash/Python/Ansible/SaltStack/Docker
Systems Administrator 1 - Linux
Windows Systems Administrator - McLean, VA - TS/SCI
IT Support Engineer, Application Administrator
System Administrator (SF)
Senior System Administrator (Storage Engineer)
Senior DevOps / System Administrator
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 30 |
Elastic
|
$92,349 | 24 |
|
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 22 |
Air Apps
|
$64,596 | 22 |
|
Anthropic
|
$362,500 | 20 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 18 |
Coinbase
|
$202,483 | 18 |
Nuro
|
$200,450 | 14 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Saalex
|
$112,500 | 17 |
|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$141,175 | 14 |
|
Air Apps
|
$62,289 | 11 |
| GR GRVTY | $153,000 | 8 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$150,250 | 8 |
|
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 5 |
SMX
|
$116,800 | 5 |
| PI Pingwind | $87,750 | 4 |
DevOps salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $226,250 | 253 |
| New York | $215,000 | 226 |
| Seattle | $210,750 | 68 |
| Los Angeles | $205,650 | 30 |
| Boston | $202,500 | 41 |
| Chicago | $195,000 | 32 |
| Denver | $183,500 | 27 |
| Austin | $182,250 | 24 |
| Atlanta | $161,725 | 10 |
| Toronto | $160,600 | 49 |
System Administrator salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $146,250 | 10 |
| Boston | $127,500 | 4 |
| New York | $121,719 | 11 |
| Los Angeles | $102,500 | 5 |
| Toronto | $61,027 | 4 |
DevOps vs System Administrator: which pays more?
The median for DevOps is $195,000 per year (typically $155,000–$225,000), versus $120,000 for System Administrator ($94,500–$145,625). That puts DevOps about 63% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so DevOps and System Administrator are compared on equal terms regardless of the currency each role was originally posted in. Only roles that publish a salary range feed the medians; numbers refresh every few hours as new roles post and older ones close, so this comparison reflects the market right now rather than a fixed survey. Use it as a directional benchmark when weighing one path against the other.